CAIRO, April 5 (Reuters) - A 6-year-old Egyptian boy has contracted the highly pathogenic bird flu virus, the sixth case in a month in the most populous Arab country, state news agency MENA said on Sunday.

MENA named the boy as Ali Mahmoud Ali Somaa, from the Nile Delta province of Qalyubia. His case brings to 63 the number of confirmed cases of the H5N1 avian flu virus in Egypt, which has been hit harder by bird flu than any other country outside of Asia.

Health Ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman Shahine said Somaa started suffering symptoms two weeks ago and was admitted to hospital a week later, where he was treated with the antiviral drug tamiflu, according to MENA.

Somaa is in a critical condition and is breathing with an artificial respirator, MENA said.

On Friday, Egypt reported a 21-month-old boy had contracted bird flu.

Since 2003 the H5N1 avian influenza virus has infected at least 410 people in 15 countries and killed 254 of them. It has killed or forced the culling of more than 300 million birds in 61 countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

Some 23 Egyptians have died after contracting the virus, most after coming into contact with infected domestic birds in a country where roughly 5 million households depend on domestically raised poultry as a significant source of food and income.

While H5N1 rarely infects people, experts say they fear it could mutate into a form that people could easily pass to one another, sparking a pandemic that could kill millions. (Writing by Aziz El-Kaissouni)

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